Legal Issues

On Friday, October 8, 2010, the Iowa Supreme Court decided the state tax case, The Sherwin-Williams Company v. Department of Revenue - No. 071534. In Sherwin-Williams, the Iowa Supreme Court interpreted the term, "manufacturer" for purposes of a sales and use tax exemption, and held that the Taxpayer, Sherwin-Williams, was eligible for an exemption from sales and use tax. Sherwin-Williams argued for an exemption of its paint-mixing and color matching machines at their retail locations. The argument brought by Sherwin-Williams was essentially that the paint-mixing and color matching machines were used in the manufacture of, and were part of the process of producing, an end product of usable paint.